they explained a few things very well and the maintenance tips are good as well

Their dba readings are adjusted to the human hearing capabilities, that might explain the results from Scythe. They tried to do something like AC does with the rating in sone.

Biggest issue is, the test did not allow large discrepancies because the airflow in the case was too good and the Northwood is not taxing enough.

Still, Scythe seemed to gain the critical knowlege from their cooperation with AC that fans matter a lot. If they start supplying the the E version of their flex fan with their coolers, the competition has to be very affraid.

The sound pressure level has the advantage of being an objective yet a handy measure of sound intensity, but it has the drawback that it is far from being an accurate measure of what is actually perceived. This is because the ear's sensitivity is strongly dependent on frequency. Indeed, whearas a sound of 1 kHz and 0 dB is already audible, you need to raise up to 37 dB to be able to hear a tone of 100 Hz. The same holds for sounds above 16 kHz.

directly from the link, they did an adjustment according to the frequency of the sound (and unless you can read German, it might have gone missing in the translation)

both the madshrimps and the other results are correct, both times a clear description is given how they were achieved